


Nobody-But-Himself

by JustMyType



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-26
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-03-09 16:32:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13485438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustMyType/pseuds/JustMyType
Summary: Whenever you think or you believe or you know, you’re a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you’re nobody-but-yourself.-- ee cummings





	1. Think

As 1912 begins Constable Robinson thinks a lot, and mostly it's about himself. He thinks a lot _of_ himself, or at least he tries to. He has great plans, as all young men should. And if most of them revolve around trying to waylay Rosie Sanderson as she makes her way through the station to his boss’s - her father’s - office then, well, that's also what a young man is supposed to do, isn’t it?

George Sanderson thinks that the cheeky blighter fresh out of the police academy isn't nearly good enough for any daughter of his but Rosie is the kind of girl who knows her own mind and all her father succeeds in doing is in taking her congenial liking for the boy on the front desk and kindling it into a spark. A spark that just might flame into desire given the right amount of fuel.

Rosie thinks that the constable is full of himself, and she’s right. But he’s more straightforward than the older men who court her, friendlier, happier, and she thinks she can shape him into something she’d like. And while Jack is caught off-guard when one day she answers his rather forward query in the affirmative and agrees that, yes, he can take her out to the theatre if he likes, he certainly isn’t going to let his consternation show.Not long previously Jack would have struggled to find the price of the tickets for a good show but he hasn’t yet told his mother that his promotion to constable came with a pay-rise so he's feeling flush and with that comes confidence. 

He splashes out on tickets at the front of the circle for the two of them, it feels magical, like the players are there just for them. It's Shakespeare, of course, and Jack is surprised that he understands more of it that he'd thought he would. Not that Rosie is impressed by their seats, she’s used to the good life. Jack wonders how much her father gets paid to keep that big house and a family in it. They have proper live-in servants and everything whereas his mother just has Mrs McDonald who does.

Jack relaxes back in the theatre seat letting his arm optimistically snake around Rosie's shoulder, dropping down to caress the smooth fabric of her bodice; he's thinking that it won't be as easy to get inside her dress as it has been with the girls he's known before. Shakespeare turns out to be both funnier and ruder than he had expected. He thinks of that illicit soft flesh below her clothes, it's so different to the taut bodies of the men he sees in the police gym locker room, it's so inviting. Rosie is in a different class to the girls he has walked out with before and he wonders briefly if he has set his target a little high.

But it's there in the theatre that Jack realises that he wants that house and that family, he wants that money, he wants to have the authority that George Sanderson brings to bear on the world. And he starts to pretend that he has it. He stands a little taller, talks a little more deliberately, thinks a little longer before he makes any move. And so Rosie sees her plan for him start to work. Jack is becoming the man she wants him to be. Jack thinks he is being nobody but himself.

And by the time that Constable Robinson asks him if he may have his daughter's hand in marriage, George Sanderson thinks he’s becoming a fine man and is pleased to accept him as a son-in-law.


	2. Believe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a heads up that there is pregnancy loss mentioned in this chapter. Please take a hug on your way in...

As 1918 begins Lance Corporal Robinson believes himself to be a dead man walking. He’s seen too many dead men. It would be heart breaking if his heart hadn't been completely numbed. When he joined the police force he knew that he'd need to deal with death but at least in the force his objective was to prevent death. Solving one murder would prevent other people from dying unnecessarily. He hadn't really thought about it in those terms until he’d left though, and besides he hadn't handled much in the way of murder yet. There had been plenty of drunks to lock up and fights to break up. He found himself smiling at the memory of arresting Elsie Tizard. A milestone for him, she’d been so nice about it it was ludicrous, told him he'd make a good copper. Those seemed like the good times now. Now he was just the instrument of death, and he didn't believe in anything any more.

When he’d left Australia, given no choice over swapping his smart constabulary navy for the drab pea soup uniform of the AIF, he’d believed he was practically a father. The baby was to be George, for Rosie's father, or Anne, for his mother. The anticipation of Rosie’s news had kept his spirits high all the way to France. Lying alone in his bunk he held his Complete Works in the way other men held the Bible. And he held on to the memory of the fluttering movement he’d just managed to perceive beneath her skin, he imagined the further swelling of her belly, it hurt to be missing it.

The news came to him cloaked. Mrs Sanderson wrote that Rosie was unwell, then convalescing, and when his wife resumed writing her own letters he had to read between the lines to understand the story, what wasn't said was telling him all he needed to know but nothing he wanted to hear. He couldn't bear to ask for more. He didn’t believe it was his fault for not being there, though with such lack of detail how could he know? He held himself responsible all the same. He should have been able to protect her; them.

But now, he simply didn’t believe in anything at all. He didn’t believe there were still sparkling seas and sunny days back in Victoria, he didn't believe he would ever swim there again. He didn’t believe there was a life for him there. There was nothing but mud and never would be. He emptied his balls into the rubber sheath that protected him from the older prostitute, or - he realised belatedly - it might have been protecting her from him. It wasn't good for him, not really, and he didn't care. He didn't care about whatever town it was this time. All the places merged, all dismal, he struggled to believe the people were real. He no longer believed he was breaking any marriage vows. That had all happened so far away it hardly mattered any more.

He was a good soldier, he hadn't lost all his scruples. He tried to keep his men safe. He made acquaintances easily but not friends, his good humour wasn't deep enough for much of a connection. He stayed a step apart from the men and that made him a good officer. Jack worked by the book when the book was right, and he winged it when that seemed the fairer course; sometimes he got it wrong. He flinched away when one of his men tried to touch him and later he would recall the longing he'd seen in the man's eyes and thought how miserable he had been to turn away and deny him anything. He could at least have comforted with camaraderie, nothing forbidden. The man was only lonely, as was he, and they were all dying. It seemed the war would go on until there were no men left. All the laws of Australia seemed a million miles away, never mind half a world.

Jack found himself in shock after the armistice came. Somehow he woke on a boat heading “home”, mostly physically intact but full of survivor’s guilt. He wanted with all his heart to be back with Rosie, curled up in bed with nothing between them, whispering and nibbling at each other until they couldn’t keep their bodies from getting as close as they could. And simultaneously his head couldn’t believe that that place was there for him any longer. He wasn't sure which bit he wanted to believe was a dream. He wasn’t prepared to find that Rosie had been just as hardened by the long separation as he had. In different ways they had become different people and he believed he had nobody but himself to blame for that.

He didn’t believe in love any longer, perhaps justice would have to do.


	3. Know

As 1924 begins Detective Sergeant Robinson knows that his marriage is on the rocks, a concept he hadn’t even thought existed when he entered into it. He already feels like it’s over. He’d known he had to try to be carefree again, to court his wife as if this was their first time. But it had proved too tough for both of them. He didn’t really want to know what the war had been like for Rosie, he still couldn’t bear to ask her for more than the facts, scared that she would tell him tales that mirrored his even without the mud and the stench and the abundance of death. They'd both had enough death. He couldn’t ask if she’d been faithful. If she had sought solace elsewhere in the years he was gone then it might be better in some ways, but it would also break him. To know she wasn’t only his. She’d never been his.

Though in bed, that’s where they come together best now. For a while they can explore each other with hands and tongues, and without need of speaking they can pretend that they are the same people that they had been before. They both chase release and when they find it together it is like the old magic has reappeared, rejuvenated. Glorious.

Rosie knows she’s not going to fall pregnant again, though the doctor says there is no reason that she shouldn’t. Jack struggles with his nightmares and won’t talk about them. He dreams of the men in the trenches, mortar fire, body parts; things he can’t explain to Rosie. He takes to leaving bed in the early hours and pouring himself a whisky in an attempt to send himself back to a dreamless slumber. Rosie tries to persuade him with her touch. She wants him to know he can ride her raw if it helps him sleep, and it does, for a while. They both have an odd sort of selfishness, each needing to feel the other convulse to know they aren't just doing this for their own gratification. But the whisky gets more frequent and the lovemaking, if you can call it that, gets less.

Jack falls out with George over the strike. But he knows George doesn’t need his police pay, and Jack does. Even though he knows that he’s never going to have the house and family that George does. And even after so long on the inside of the select Sanderson clan Jack hasn’t figured out where that family get their money from. So Jack strikes, stands up with his colleagues, wishing he could count more of them as friends. He mans the picket lines fighting for more pay and better working conditions and he knows he is right. Rosie’s torn, she never quite works out which one of them to side with.

Jack knows he is better off in the aftermath of the strike but he also knows there was no rhyme or reason to which policemen were dismissed. He wonders whether his family connection is what kept him in work. Either way, he knows he has to try and make Melbourne a better place now. His wife knows she can’t manage to mend him, that he needs something different, though she’ll continue to pretend she’s trying to for a little while yet. Jack knows he has a flicker of life returning to him, something can be made from these embers and he has a duty to carry through. He knows nobody but himself cares about his duty, but it is all he has left.


	4. Feel

As 1930 begins Jack feels like nobody but himself. Brim full of feelings. He doesn't need to think in order to know that the woman who is so often in his arms, or he in hers, is the right one. For the moment. Now they’ve got here it is of no matter if this relationship doesn't last forever. He is pouring his whole soul into it without thinking of what the future may bring. He knows himself well enough by now to realise that sometimes he can’t change the world and sometimes the world changes him.

His eyes roam around the ship’s dance floor. Ostensibly he’s seeking out the red dress of the woman he loves, he loves to watch her move.But then finds himself visually assessing everyone who dances by before her, even the firm rump and broad back of the gentleman she’s dancing with. Is this what it’s like to be Phryne? To look at everyone as a potential partner even whilst you have one waiting patiently for you? He promised Phryne he wouldn’t change her; he wouldn’t want to change her. That feels right. But Phryne, the outrageously good detective that she is, notices the way his gaze is lingering and meets his eye with a sly smirk as if to say “Jack Robinson, would that work for you? I do like being surprised by you.” And Jack knows that it just might work for him but the thought is enough. He smiles back at her and looks away. Even here where he’s not really being a policeman and perhaps at sea there’s not even a law. They’ve already found some legally rather grey areas in their nautical investigations. He can talk to Phryne and explore the idea between them later. He won’t be sorry if she comes back to their cabin knowing what’s under that wide jacket and silky trousers. This is a new world and it feels good to think of new things in it.

Indeed, this trip is a world away from his first journey to Europe. It’s hard to reconcile the two experiences or to realise that they both happened to him. Each seems to be a dream to the other Jack. This one feels real but he believed the other was real at the time. Perhaps he did die and get to heaven. He’s not sure he could tell the difference.

He puts down his whisky, there is no need to use it as a sleeping draught these days. His mind is calmer and his nightmares can be contained. Rationalised. Most of the time. Phryne fights her own demons, but then so did his former wife. So does everyone. Walking out along the deck he feels the cool breeze on his face, a rather pleasant feeling after the warm days crossing the tropical waters.

He resolves not to think of anything. It doesn’t matter any more what the future holds for him. Not because he can’t bear it but because he knows he can deal with it. With her or without her it will be good. Life. If she eventually runs away from him, or perhaps they just fall apart, he won’t regret the time he’s spent with her. Just as he doesn’t, in the end, regret his years with Rosie.

He resolves not to believe. Previous versions of himself have been so credulous he can hardly stand to think of them. But he can't help believing that there is essentially good in this world.

And he still knows that it’s his mission to find that good, to find the justice for those who struggle. He can’t forget everything he’s done and he wouldn’t want to. All the experiences have made him who he is, and he wants to carry on like that. He can’t change the past; he can try to shape the future.He can do his best to try to make the world a better place. He can feel where the limits of his abilities lie now and those boundaries don’t scare him.

For today though, in this odd place, away from land, out of time or space, he is simply feeling. Feeling everything about being alive. He didn’t die on that battlefield. He didn’t lose his job on the picket line. He’ll still have a career as a detective when they return to Victoria. And it feels good to simply be himself here. And it feels exceptionally good when the woman in the red dress comes and wraps her strong arms around him as he leans on the ship’s railing watching the waxing moon float over the horizon.

“Are you feeling alright Jack?” She asks gently.

“I’m feeling like myself.”

Phryne smiles and replies saucily that she feels like him too, she grabs his hand and leads the way back to their cabin. He never does discover, even secondhand, what was under that fine suit on the dance floor, but telling Phryne what he was thinking, knowing that he can open up his own feelings and let them out, that really makes him feel alive.


End file.
